Introduction to Integral Theory and Practice IOS Basic and the AQAL ...

won’t talk to you”). And so on with the other major chakras, each of them having a
solar and lunar, or masculine and feminine dimension; neither is more
fundamental, neither can be ignored.
At the 7 th chakra, however, notice that the masculine and feminine serpents
both disappear into their ground or source. Masculine and feminine meet and
unite at the crown—they literally become one. And that is what Gilligan found with
her stage-4 moral development: the two voices in each person become integrated,
so that there is a paradoxical union of autonomy and relationship, rights and
responsibilities, agency and communion, wisdom and compassion, justice and
mercy, masculine and feminine.
The important point is that whenever you use IOS, you are automatically
checking any situation—in yourself, in others, in an organization, in a culture—and
making sure that you include both the masculine and feminine types so as to be
as comprehensive and inclusive as possible. If you believe that there are no
major differences between masculine and feminine—or if you are suspicious of
such differences—then that is fine, too, and you can treat them the same if you
want. We are simply saying that, in either case, make sure you touch bases with
both the masculine and feminine, however you view them.
But more than that, there are numerous other “horizontal typologies” that can
be very helpful when part of a comprehensive IOS, and the Integral Approach
draws on any or all of those typologies as appropriate. “Types” are as important as
quadrants, levels, lines, and states.
Sick Boy, Sick Girl
There’s an interesting thing about types. You can have healthy and unhealthy
versions of them. To say that somebody is caught in an unhealthy type is not a
way to judge them but to understand and communicate more clearly and
effectively with them.
Introduction to Integral Theory and Practice. Page 18